Class profile

String Theory

Banjo music melds with ancient instruments in Morocco

When Michael
Miles’76
las left the University of Illinois in 1974 to spend his junior year in
England, it was the first time he’d ever set foot
overseas.

It wouldn’t be the last.

Just this year, the Chicago musician returned from his second trip to Morocco,
a five-city tour that came at the invitation of the U.S. State Department. Miles’ diplomacy,
though, was of a different sort – to use the language of music to communicate.

“Music is a big part of who Americans are, and it’s a part that
the rest of the world doesn’t always get to see,” he says. Recognized
as one of the country’s leading innovators on the five-string banjo, Miles
toured the African nation with Chicago-based drummer Tony Dale and Moroccan multi-instrumentalist
Abdelilah El Miry. Along the way, Moroccan musicians took time to teach Miles
ancient melodies.

“Some played oud, some played louthar, all unusual string instruments
that are all native to Northern Africa,” he says. The tour also included
a special event with world-renowned oud player Haj Younes of Casablanca. “I
was getting personal instruction from the masters!” Miles says.

At a state department concert in Marrakech, U.S. Ambassador Samuel Kaplan
told the audience that if anyone can represent the U.S. well, it’s open-minded
and approachable American musicians like Michael Miles. Miles also performed
for children at elementary schools and for townspeople at civic events throughout
Morocco. “I’d tell them that people can appreciate one another’s
culture by sharing history and music, and when that happens, there is hope for
the world,” he says.

“Theoretically that’s the truth, and people say it out loud, but
we could demonstrate it,” Miles says. “Out come these guys with their
ancient string instruments, and we would play together – everybody was
honored by everybody else’s presence.”

Miles first got to Morocco in a roundabout way. The accomplished composer
and musical playwright had left his job as program director at the legendary
Old Town School of Folk Music in 1998 in Chicago to open a one-man show at Chicago’s
Pegasus Players Theatre. After that, Pegasus commissioned him to write “Chicago
Rhythm and Rhymes,” a show Miles debuted in Casablanca in October 2002
during his initial trip to Morocco.

“I knew Michael would be a great success on the tour,” says Arlene
Crewdson, former executive director of Pegasus Players Theatre and founder of
Global Voices, a project bridging cultures through the arts. (He has been working
with Global Voices ever since, linking students from Chicago Public Schools to
students at Riad School in Casablanca.) “Michael Miles is not only a great
musician,” she says, “he is also a man who is absolutely dedicated
to peace and the kinship of all human beings.”

Michael Miles in concert with Abdelilah el Miry on
gimbre and Nasser Hourari on oud

Miles did not study music while an undergraduate at Illinois, opting instead
for a degree in oral interpretation. After teaching himself to play banjo and
guitar, he started using the instrument in his interpretations of literature. “I
discovered that music, just like music scores in films, … can push the
story forward,” he says.

Miles’ love for theater and music blossomed during his junior year abroad
at University of Lancaster. “I wrote a letter from England to my entire
family saying that I’d decided I would be a musician,” he says with
a chuckle. “I got a whole variety of responses to that.”

Miles got the last laugh, though. Repeatedly praised by music critics, his
groundbreaking work on the banjo has put Miles in a category all his own. He
has collaborated with world-class jazz, classical and folk artists – most
notably fellow banjoists Pete Seeger and Béla Fleck, as well as the de
Pasquale String Quartet of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Miles has been invited for a third trip to Morocco and is weighing invitations
to perform in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, India and England. “I pinch myself
regularly,” he says, “that I make a living doing this thing, this
thing that I love to do.”